


So It Isn't Little By Little

by Squash (JeSuisGourde)



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, post-coming out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 00:46:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16505954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeSuisGourde/pseuds/Squash
Summary: Ian's been out for three years. You've been out for three hours. You've never given a shit about being free, not if being alive came first.





	So It Isn't Little By Little

The two of you walk back home with your arms around each other's shoulders, like you're both drunk, only you're not, at all. Ian is smiling but you're not. Can't yet. You still feel numb, and maybe it's the cold, or the slam against the cop car, but you don't think so. You stumble up your front steps and into the dark house, strip your shirt off and stick your face in the spray of the shower, standing outside of the tub with your pants still on. When the water is no longer pink, you dry off and get dressed and grab a beer.

“Mick?” You wave him off and move to the door, mumbling something about having a smoke real quick.

If Ian thought you two were going to fuck after all that, he got it wrong. This is not the adrenaline of a robbery well done or the rush of running from the cops. You know that energy, and this isn't it. This sits heavy against the back of your skull, has your heart thumping with a sort of painful thud, not the racing you get a kick out of. You sit on the front porch in your sweatshirt, pretending your shakes are just shivers from the cold.

In the corner of your eye, you can see Ian peering out the window at you, a small pinch on his face, like he wants to come out and ask you what's up but he knows he shouldn't. The same pinch, the way you could tell he used to itch to touch and kiss but he held back for you, because you'd hit it back at him, your heart thumping hard. He always looked so hurt when you did that. You didn't know how to explain that you _had_ to. Didn't know how to explain why in Boystown it was different, why in that loft it was different. That it was south side that made the difference, not you, and not Ian. Just south side, its threats, its baseball bats and guns and aggro fuckers bigger and stronger and not as scared as you.

Ian shifts at the edge of your vision, still looking concerned. Maybe he's wondering if you're still not free.

“You don't understand,” you want to yell at him. “I love you, I really do, but you don't understand. If he wasn't going back to prison, Terry would be getting ready to kill us. He'd already be here. He'd kill you first, slowly, and he'd make me watch. I know this.”

Ian's been out for three years. You've been out for three hours. Ian told one person at a time, awkward conversations, small smiles, confusion first, then hugs and reassurances. You announced it to the world, angry, to a room full of people who either didn't give a shit about you or could have killed you. And all Ian cared about was being free. You've never given a shit about being free, not if being alive came first.

You finish your cigarette and light a second. Ian steps out on the porch, holding your coat.

“It's cold,” he says, by way of explanation. “Here.”

“I'm okay,” you say, shrugging. “Feels good on my face. Kinda got fucked over in there.”

He flinches a little, like he knows you're talking about him. But he still drapes the coat against your back and sits down next to you. You give him your cigarette, a peace offering. He takes a drag, passes it back. The way you two used to kiss before you kissed. Lips on paper on lips, tasting each other through the tobacco and smoke.

“How does it feel?” he asks.

You rub the cut on the side of your nose, press your tongue against your sore tooth so hard it throbs. “It fuckin' hurts.”

He shakes his head. “No, you know what I mean.”

“It fuckin' hurts.” You shrug. You don't want to explain your thudding heart, the urge to look out into the street every six seconds for your dad's buddies coming for the two of you with guns or knives or what the fuck ever.

Ian looks down at the dirty snow under his feet, ground down into smooth brownish ice by the boots going up and down your porch. Now that it's all over, you're still a little bit angry, still a little freaked out. Still feeling the edges of that overdrive panic from back at the bar, too many fucked up things to focus on at once— your dad and your son and your wife's threat and all the noise and Kevin's bullshit and Ian's dramatic ultimatum and the fear, the panic, and you had wanted to scream and now it's stuck there in your throat. Stuck there because you don't know what you'd be screaming at, now.

You get it, though. You get what he wanted. The idea that those fags in the loft were somehow better than the two of you because they could hold hands and kiss without looking over their shoulders. As if somehow announcing it to a couple dozen people in a local bar will change how everyone on the street sees you, will change the way you always want to look over your shoulder. But you get it. You do. Because this time, the fear isn't about you. It's about him. It's about _get the fuck off him!_ and every time you watched him walk out the door or almost walk out the door. It's about looking at his face when you stood bloodied and cold outside the Alibi and he stared at you like nothing else in the world existed. It's about the way you're still terrified but something about the terror feels lighter, like this time you could face it head on if it came down to it.

So you temper the harshness of your words by shrugging and looking sideways at him. “I've had worse, though.” You don't say, _he could have killed us_. Instead you say, “And you got my back, so...”

He bumps your shoulder with his so you bump him back. He curls an arm across your back and you don't shrug him off, don't want to. You've always secretly loved him touching you, his hands holding your hips, pressing against your lower back, curled against your neck. Maybe it doesn't have to be so secret now.

The exhaustion hits you all at once, another punch to the face when you've really had enough for the night. You rub at your eyes, pinch the bridge of your nose and wince when you scratch the cut there. Your breath is white when you sigh, it makes you crave yet another cigarette.

“What fucking time is it?”

Ian fumbles for his phone, shrugs when he realizes it's in the house, on the table next to yours. “Dunno. Eleven-something? Midnight?”

“Fuckin' A,” you mumble around a yawn.

“Shower, then sleep?” Ian asks, and you wave him off, standing up.

“Nah, no shower. Shower tomorrow, sleep now.”

“Mickey, you're covered in blood and beer and who the fuck knows what else. So am I.”

“Fine,” You sigh, trying to stretch out the cold kinks in your back. “But you're doing all the work. It's the least you could do. I'm fuckin' beat.”

So you follow him inside, and shed your clothes when he tells you to, and get into the shower when he turns it on, and bask in the feeling of his hands washing your hair and face and neck, and sleepily try to reciprocate, but he bats your hands away and washes himself while you stand under the warm spray and watch. Tonight is already starting to feel like a far off nightmare. Everything always feels softer after the touch of knuckles and glass and the taste of blood.

You're practically asleep on your feet, and you're more than ready to just pass out as soon as you crawl into bed. But you're awake long enough for Ian to initiate a long, deep kiss good night, his fingers pressing against your cheek. You're awake long enough to rake your fingers through his hair and mumble, “Fuck you, Gallagher,” and feel a laugh flutter against your face. You're awake long enough for his fingers to lace between yours and you just hold them closer.

You know he doesn't get it, doesn't really see the weight of it all crashing away into the snow. That's okay. You get it, your side of it and his. The fear and the freedom. Maybe one day you'll figure them both out. For now, you're going to favor one over the other. He snuffles against the back of your neck and you smile with your eyes closed. His thumbs are calloused. So are yours. You press your thumb against his and push your nose against the inside of his wrist, the world around you softening for now as you let your exhaustion and Ian's gentle grip pull you under.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've read a few fics about Mickey and Ian having a post-coming out "victory/adrenaline fuck" type thing and I just never felt like Mickey would have been up for that. So this is what came of that thought.


End file.
